How nature shapes the way we design our journeys, work with communities, and support practical conservation in Mongolia.
Mongolia’s landscapes are at the heart of almost every journey we offer. The open steppe, Gobi desert, mountain forests, wetlands, river valleys and high-altitude landscapes are not simply a backdrop for tourism. They support wildlife, livestock and water sources, as well as the communities whose lives remain closely connected to the land.
They are also under increasing pressure.
Climate change, mining, infrastructure development, overgrazing, water scarcity, waste and changes in land use are all affecting Mongolia’s landscapes and habitats. These pressures overlap. Changes to pasture affect livestock and herding families. Changes to water sources affect both people and wildlife. Roads and development can fragment habitats.
Tourism is part of the picture too. Every journey uses transport, food and water. It creates waste, involves accommodation and brings visitors into places where people and wildlife already live.
We do not claim that tourism is automatically good for nature, or that travelling with us removes the environmental impact of taking a holiday. Our responsibility is to pay attention to the choices we make, question how we operate, and change what is within our control.
Mongolia lies where the Central Asian steppe, Siberian taiga and Gobi Desert meet, creating an extraordinary range of landscapes and habitats.
Around a fifth of the country is currently under national protection, but protected status alone does not protect a landscape. These places also need monitoring, research, funding and the involvement of the communities who live within and around them.
That matters to us because our journeys depend on these landscapes. Tourism cannot exist separately from the places in which it takes place. Where we travel, how often we visit, how many people we bring, how we use water and what happens to our waste are all part of the same picture.
There are rarely perfect answers. We cannot make travel impact-free. But, what we can do is keep asking the questions.
The following maps help show the scale and importance of these protected and internationally recognised landscapes.
A comparison of protected areas before 2008 and in 2020. Maps from The Nature Conservancy.
A comparison of protected areas before 2008 and in 2020. Maps from The Nature Conservancy.
We keep our groups small, usually with a maximum of four to six travellers, and we limit the number of departures we operate.
We also prefer slower journeys. Mongolia is enormous. Trying to squeeze every well-known highlight into a short itinerary usually means more time moving and less time actually being somewhere. Our journeys tend to spend longer in each region and include the places in between rather than treating them simply as ground to be covered.
We work through long-term relationships rather than continually looking for new communities and places to turn into tourism experiences.That approach matters to us. A family we stay with is not simply an accommodation provider. A herder is not simply someone who provides horses. A local conservation partner is not simply an activity on an itinerary.
We also approach wildlife cautiously. Sightings cannot be guaranteed. Getting closer is not always better. We do not chase wildlife for photographs, and an animal’s welfare and habitat matter more than obtaining the perfect image.
Sometimes the right wildlife encounter is a distant one. Sometimes nothing appears at all. That is part of being in a living landscape rather than a controlled wildlife attraction.
Our wider climate commitments sit alongside this work. Eternal Landscapes is a signatory to the Glasgow Declaration, but we do not regard participation in an initiative as proof that we have everything right.
For us, frameworks like this are useful because they encourage us to keep looking critically at the way we operate.
We also developed the Heroes of Nature Eco Club with Association Goviin Khulan.
The idea was simple: to create free nature activities for children growing up in Ulaanbaatar and give them more opportunities to explore, ask questions and develop their own relationship with Mongolia’s wildlife and landscapes.
After completing our first projects, we paused the programme while we look for the right community base and partnership for its next stage.
We could keep it running simply so that we can say we have an environmental project. But, we do not think that is a good enough reason. It needs the right people, the right location and a structure that genuinely works for the children involved.
We work with people and organisations whose conservation work is rooted in local knowledge and long-term involvement.
One of these is the Association Goviin Khulan, a grassroots Mongolian organisation working to protect the khulan, or Mongolian wild ass, and its habitat.
Its work recognises that wildlife conservation cannot be separated from the needs and experiences of local communities. Research, education, local participation, and an understanding of the pressures people face all form part of protecting the wider landscape.
In western Mongolia, we also work with a community of herders who have received training and support to monitor snow leopards and other wildlife.
Their knowledge of the mountains, animal tracks, weather, and seasonal movement is built through daily experience of the landscape. Some also work as wildlife spotters, giving travellers the chance to learn from people who know the region intimately.
This creates an additional source of local income, but it is important not to romanticise it. Wildlife tourism alone cannot protect snow leopards, and the presence of visitors must not place additional pressure on the animals.
The value lies in supporting people who already live alongside wildlife and whose involvement is essential to its long-term protection.
This thinking does not begin and end in Mongolia.
Since the pandemic, our founder Jess has spent more time in Devon due to caring responsibilities for her mum, and has co-founded Wild Oke, Okehampton’s community wildlife group.
Wild Oke is deliberately small, local and practical. It brings people together through talks, activities, campaigns and community projects, creating opportunities to learn more about the wildlife living alongside us and to take part in practical local action.
Most community nature work is not dramatic. It may mean planting for pollinators, protecting an existing patch of habitat, making space for nesting birds, learning how to help hedgehogs, recording wildlife sightings or giving a few hours to a local project.
Wild Oke reflects something we have learned through Eternal Landscapes too.
Useful change is often built through relationships, local knowledge and repeated small actions rather than headline-making gestures.
Nature protection is not a separate part of our business or something that can be reduced to a single project.
It influences where we travel, who we work with, how many guests we bring, what we ask of local communities, and how honestly we talk about tourism’s impact.
We are still learning. Some projects will change, some partnerships will develop, and some ideas may prove not to be the right fit.
Our aim is not to suggest that we have solved the problem. It is to remain involved, listen to people with greater knowledge and experience, and continue taking practical action in Mongolia and in the communities we are part of at home.
